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Best New Spotting Scope: Zeiss Dialyt Field Spotter 18–45x65mm

At a penny under $1,300, this spotter is around a third the cost of Zeiss’s DiaScope and weighs in at two-thirds of what the bigger scopes tip the scales at. For hunting, the Dialyt could be one of the purest, most rugged spotting scopes in quite some time. Tester Van Buggenum certainly believed so, writing in his evaluation that “this is what I think a spotting scope should be!” Clearly, the scope says retro with its straight metal body armored in ribbed black rubber and its built-in variable eyepiece, but without the dust or moisture issues of traditional drawtube scopes.

There are large, snug-fitting rubber covers for the ocular and objective lenses, and the focus is at the objective (in technical terms the “big end”). The scope is designed for rigging with a shoulder strap through the covers so that both can be removed easily (as a single attached unit) when you want to mount the scope to a tripod. —T.M.